Copyright 2006 by David W. Cloud Updated November 14, 2008 ISBN 1-58318-104-0 This material cannot be placed on BBS or Internet Web sites Published by Way of Life Literature P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061 866-295-4143 (toll free) [email protected] (e-mail) http://www.wayoflife.org (web site) Canada: Bethel Baptist Church, 4212 Campbell St. N., London, Ont. N6P1A6 519-652-2619 (voice) 519-652-0056 (fax) [email protected] (e-mail) Printed in Canada by Bethel Baptist Print Ministry 2 ADVERTISEMENT FOR ADVANCED BIBLE STUDIES COURSE ON “THE BIBLE VERSION ISSUE” The information in this book (Why We Hold to the King James Bible) is also contained in a course designed for use in forums such as Bible Colleges, Sunday Schools, and Home Schooling. The course is one of the Way of Life Advanced Bible Studies Series and is entitled “The Bible Version Issue.” The material is laid out in outline form to simplify teaching. The Bible Version Issue course includes review questions after each section for the students, plus there is a separate book for teachers containing sectional and final tests with the answers. The review questions and tests are carefully designed to draw the student’s attention to the most important points and to help him remember these points long after the course is finished. The sectional review questions go over all of the important points in the section, while the sectional tests draw from the most important of the review questions and the final test draws from the most important points of the sectional tests. 3 CONTENTS Introduction................................................................................... 6 Why We Hold to the King James Bible .......................................... 30 I. Because of the doctrine of divine preservation .................. 30 II. Because the theories supporting the Modern Greek Text are heretical ................................................... 161 III. Because the modern texts and versions are a product of end-time apostasy ........................................... 213 IV. Because of the King James Bible’s superior doctrine .... 281 V Because of the King James Bible’s unmatched heritage ... 315 Textual Checklist ....................................................................... 454 Suggested Resources ................................................................. 460 4 INTRODUCTION There are many reasons why the Bible version issue must be faced. 1. The Bible version issue must be faced BECAUSE IT IS FOUNDATIONAL (Ps. 138:2). The Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice. Nothing is more important than the issue of to what degree we can have confidence in the Bible that has come down to us through the centuries. Many are saying that this is a side issue, a non-essential, but nothing could be farther from the truth. 2. The Bible version issue must be faced BECAUSE THERE ARE THREE COMPETING GREEK NEW TESTAMENTS TODAY. There is the Received Text underlying the King James Bible and other Reformation versions. The Received Text is published today by the Trinitarian Bible Society, the Dean Burgon Society, and others. There is the Critical Greek text based on the Westcott and Hort of 1881. This is published by the United Bible Societies and others. Consider some facts about this New Testament as compared with the Received Text: It is shorter than the Reformation Greek text by 2,886 words, which is the equivalent of the omission of the entire books of 1 and 2 Peter. It omits or questions 45 entire verses -- Mt. 12:47; 17:21; 18:11; 21:44; 23:14; Mk. 7:16; 9:44; 9:46; 11:26; 15:28; 16:9-20; Luke 17:36; 22:43-44; 23:17; Jn. 5:4; John 7:53--8:11; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:7; 28:29; Rom. 16:24; and 1 Jn. 5:7. In addition it omits significant portions of 147 other verses. It weakens the doctrine of Christ’s deity (e.g., it omits “who is in heaven” from Jn. 3:13; it omits “God” from 1 Tim. 3:16) and other key doctrines. In these studies we will show where and when the “shortened New Testament” of the Critical Greek Text originated. 6 There is also the “Majority Text” of Hodges and Farstad published in 1982 by Thomas Nelson. It differs from the Received Text in more than 1,000 places. For example, it omits Mat. 27:35; Lk. 17:36; Acts 8:37; and 1 John 5:7. We analyze the Majority Text in Faith vs. the Modern Bible Versions, Part IX, “We hold to the KJV because we reject the ‘Majority Text’ position.” 3. The Bible version issue must be faced BECAUSE OF THE ONSLAUGHT OF MODERN VERSIONS IN THE LAST 50 YEARS. Some of the modern English versions since 1952: 1952 -- Revised Standard Version 1959 -- Berkeley Version in Modern English 1960 -- New American Standard Bible 1961 -- New English Bible 1962 -- Modern King James Version ---------- The Living Bible ---------- Clarified New Testament 1964 -- Anchor Bible 1965 -- Amplified Bible 1966 -- Jerusalem Bible. 1968 -- Barclay’s New Testament 1970 -- New American Bible 1971 -- King James II Version 1972 -- The Bible in Living English 1973 -- The Common Bible (RSV) ---------- New International Version 1976 -- Today’s English Version (Good News for Modern Man) ----------- The Holy Bible in the Language of Today, An American Translation 1978 -- Simple English Bible 1979 -- New King James Bible 1984 -- A New Accurate Translation 1988 -- Christian Community Bible Translation 1989 -- Revised English Bible 1990 -- Simplified Living Bible ---------- New Revised Standard Version 1993 -- The Message New Testament 1995 -- Contemporary English Version 7 ---------- New International Readers Version (NirV) ---------- New International Version Inclusive Language Edition 1996 -- The Bible for Today's Family ---------- The New Living Translation 2002 -- Today’s New International Version (New Testament) ---------- The Message (whole Bible) 2004 -- Holman Christian Standard Bible It is important to understand that the Bible version issue did not really “heat up” for fundamentalists until the 1970s. There were modern texts and versions prior to this, going back to the 1800s, but they were never widely used among fundamentalists or even among evangelicals. The English Revised Version of 1881 was never popular. The same was true for the American Standard Version of 1901. The Revised Standard Version of 1952 was popular only within liberal denominations. The New American Standard Bible of 1960 had a small following among scholarly evangelicals and even a few fundamentalists but it was never widely popular. It was not until the publication of the New International Version that a modern version began to be widely used outside of theologically liberal circles. Faced with the growing popularity of the NIV, many fundamentalists began to look more carefully at the Bible version issue and as a result many books began to appear in defense of the King James Bible. Any time one sees a body of apologetic literature in church history, it is because something has happened to challenge the traditional position in some realm. The number of books defending the KJV has been multiplied since the 1970s for the simple reason that it is being challenged at this time in a way that it was not challenged prior to this. 4. The Bible version issue must be faced BECAUSE SOME FUNDAMENTAL BAPTISTS ARE SUPPORTING THE MODERN TEXTS AND VERSIONS. In recent years several books have been published by fundamentalists in support of modern textual criticism. These include Facts on the King Only Debate by Ankerberg and Weldon (1996); From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man edited by J.B. Williams (1999), One Bible Only: Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible by Roy Beacham and Kevin Bauder (2001), Bible Preservation and the Providence of God by Sam Schnaiter and 8 Ron Tagliapietra (2002), and God’s Word in Our Hands: The Bible Preserved for Us edited by J.B. Williams and Randolph Shaylor (2003). These books present the standard myths of modern textual criticism. They claim, for example, that the differences between the Received Text and the Critical Text are slight and insignificant and that no doctrine is affected by the textual changes. These books also take a harsh position against those who defend the King James Bible. In the introduction to From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man, the editor, J.B. Williams, calls the defense of the KJV a “cancerous sore” that has resulted in “a deplorable condition in Fundamentalism.” He describes the defense of the KJV a “mass of misinformation.” Williams and the other fundamentalist writers who have jumped on the modern textual criticism bandwagon paint the entire field of King James defense with the broad brush of Ruckmanism. 5. The Bible version issue must be faced BECAUSE, GENERALLY SPEAKING, ONLY ONE SIDE OF THIS DEBATE IS GIVEN TODAY. Consider some examples of this: First we have the testimony by a man who trained under the famous Southern Baptist professor A.T. Robertson. This was given in a letter to David Otis Fuller in the 1970s. “Dear Dr. Fuller: On May 12, 1970, you wrote me a very kind letter and sent me some sample materials from your book Which Bible? You might as well have been shooting a popgun at a stone wall. My mind was so strongly fortified in the doctrine of Westcott and Hort that I could not for one moment consider the King James Bible. Had I not studied Textual Criticism under the great Dr. A.T. Robertson? I thought that you were just one of those die-hard Fundamentalists who were striving to keep the Christian world under the bondage of traditionalism. Such men are interested only in pleasing the people by catering to their ignorance, prejudice and sentimentality! But just a few weeks ago I happened to read your two books, Which Bible? and True or False? For the first time a little new light shone in.